Lot 530
530
VARIOUS PROPERTIES
A RARE PIERCED SOAPSTONE BOTTLE

Details
A RARE PIERCED SOAPSTONE BOTTLE
18TH CENTURY

Of flattened pear shape, each side pierced with shaped oval panels of different diaper pattern revealing the oval cylinder interior, with large monster-mask handles projecting from the neck above pierced scrolls curling down to the foot and onto the side panels, with gilt-highlighted incised decoration throughout, the pale stone with areas of reddish inclusions on one side, the neck interior cut with screw turning, minute panel chip, stopper

Lot Essay

For a very similar type of bottle, presumably from the same workshop, see Helen White, Snuff Bottles from China, The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection, p. 66, no. 1, which formed part of the Salting Bequest to the British Nation. The author notes that "the style and complexity of this bottle is unusual, as is the screw fitting of the stopper"

Like the Victoria and Albert example, this bottle has a screw-turned neck interior, elephantine handles and various patterns of design to the piercing. For another rectangular soapstone bottle, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, also pierced to reveal an inner bottle, see Bob C. Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, p. 171, no. 646; and another sold Parke Bernet, New York, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Elmer A. Claar Collection, Part I, December 2, 1969, lot 128